Pancakes in Liberal
am sure most people in the town know Iabout the link between Olney and Liberal in Kansas, and the international flavour to our unique and famous
Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race.
The Rev. Cannon Collins, Rector of Olney at the time, was approached by a leading citizen of Liberal R.J. Leete in January 1950, and asked if the town could join with Olney and run a race of the same length in friendly competition .
During the 65 years that this rivalry has survived, there have been many visits of Liberal residents to Olney for Pancake Day, and similarly a good number of Olney Pancake Committee Members have visited Liberal.
covered Rocky Mountains of Colorado out on to the very flat and wind-swept plains of Kansas. We drove into Liberal on the most glorious Spring day, not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the high teens. But how quickly things can change! We heard on the news that storm 'Titan' was brewing out in the west and travelling east and north. By Saturday, the temperature had dropped to freezing and it started to snow overnight and all day Sunday. It was blizzard conditions with temperatures down to -15c and a wind chill factor of -20c. Fortunately we had taken overcoats and thermals , but it was still very unpleasant to be outside on the Sunday. By Monday, it was all change - the snow had stopped, the temperature had risen and the sun came out in the afternoon . By Tuesday 's Pancake Day, it was back to Spring weather, sunny and warm. When we left on Wednesday it was snowing again. We gather this is quite normal Kansas weather, having four seasons in one weekend .
No sooner had we checked into our hotel on Friday afternoon than Mark Strange , our appointed host, was there to greet us and invite us to our first function at 5.30pm. It was a reception in our honour so we could meet the Pancake Board and dignitaries of Liberal.
Now in Olney, Pancake Day lasts for perhaps four hours, but in Liberal it lasts for four days. On Saturday there was pancake eating, flipping and cooking competitions in the morning. Viv took part in the flipping competition and managed 230 pancakes.
After many years of helping to organize the race in Olney, Viv and I took the decision last year to scale down our input, and the committee thought it would be a good opportunity for us to visit Liberal. Plans were made back in August last year and flights booked to Denver, Colorado, which is the closest international airport to get to Liberal.
We left the UK on a direct BA flight from the impressive Terminal 5 at Heathrow on 23rd February. Fortunately, we have friends living in Boulder some 40 miles north of Denver, where we spent four days acclimatizing and recovering from jet lag. Afterwards we set out for the 440 mile journey to Liberal (we had hired a car for the four weeks we would be in America). Our journey took us from the beautiful snow 74 PhoneboxMagazine
A visit to Dorothy's House (Wizard of Oz) in the afternoon and there was a concert in the first Southern Baptist Church in the evening. On Sunday we attended church with Mark and Laura Strange, followed by lunch, then straight onto the Miss Liberal Scholarship Pageant, where the winner was chosen in true Miss World style .
On Monday, we spent the morning in the Pancake Hall of Fame. This is a house they have moved to a site by the finish line of the Pancake Race, and it is full of memorabilia relating to Pancake Days over the past 65 years .
Virginia Leete, wife of R.J., had kept scrapbooks every year for the Pancake Hall of Fame, full of photos and paper